When trust is gone, we're always on edge

We trust that drivers will stay on their side of the road, that the gas pump is delivering perfectly measured gallons of fuel and that the waiter did not spit in our soup.

It would be hard to walk through life suspicious of everyone even though there is evidence that trust is tricky.

Just look at some of the recent news out of Pike County.

The treasurer of the Millrift Fire Department, Massiel Edwards, was charged with theft after admitting she took $10,288 from the department for personal use.

Police said Edwards used the money to pay her property taxes; had propane delivered to her home; paid electric bills; a $500 Cablevision bill; $1,086 to Verizon Wireless; and withdrew cash on at least 20 occasions.

Nelson Ruiz, 35, of Shohola, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to defrauding the New York City Department of Education out of about $2.7 million and to bribing a department employee to carry out the scheme, according to federal officials.

From 2008 through June 2012, Ruiz billed the department for sign language interpretation services for 11 New York City public schoolchildren.

But none of the students actually needed the services. Some were not even enrolled in a school, authorities said.

Counselor Patricia Delorenzo will plead guilty to health care fraud for bilking insurance provider Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania out of more than $10,000.

She is charged with using a variety of fraudulent billing schemes at her home-based business, Serenity Drug and Alcohol Outpatient Facility, in Milford, federal court papers say.

A volunteer fire department treasurer, a sign language interpreter and a mental health counselor: Three noble positions soiled by the lure of easy money.

Everyone holds a position of trust somewhere in life, although some of us don't deserve it.

Integrity, a personal decision to do the right thing, is all it takes to be someone people can depend on.

Without it, who can you trust?

State Police at Blooming Grove sent out an official press release this week reporting the sighting of a rare animal trotting along Interstate 84.

According to the press release, which included a grainy photo, the creature was seen around 5:30 p.m. between mile markers 41 and 45 in Milford Township.

"A rare form of an animal that resembles a horse with a large pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead and sometimes seen with a goat's beard and cloven hooves, was seen trotting down the westbound lane of Interstate 84," the report said.

The animal was described to be an okapis, a horse-like animal found in Africa with a reddish brown body and black and white stripes on its legs.

It is the kind of story that makes journalists salivate — if only it were true.

The press release was a hoax.

"It was a prank played by the midnight guys," said an embarrassed trooper who fielded a lot of media calls about it.

A similar joke press release printed on an official state police form was sent around more than a year ago with a similar grainy photo and a different description of a bizarre animal.

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